Many fire, security, and other monitoring systems employ battery operated radio frequency (RF) transceivers to form a wireless mesh network. However, such systems must minimize the amount of data transmitted via the wireless mesh network in order to maximize battery life of the transceivers.
In known systems, a message that originates at a first receiver in a wireless mesh network may be repeated at other transceivers, and some transceivers may insert additional information into a received data packet before transmitting the data packet and the inserted additional information. Furthermore, in known systems, a source node or transceiver inserts its unique identifier (ID) so that the source and path taken for each piece of information in a data packet is readily accessible at a destination node.
However, it is desirable to conserve additional battery power in the transceivers and nodes. Therefore, there is a continuing, ongoing need for improved systems and methods for optimizing battery life in wireless multi-hop communication systems.